How would you evaluate this conference?

To the award winning venue:

·       Directions for a very simple walk from the station, were via a map with road names printed in such tiny text, white on grey, as to render it unreadable. I wasn't the only one to set off in the wrong direction.

·       Your main entrance was closed for building works, but this was not noted on the directions. I had already walked right past the side entrance and missed it completely.

·       The semi-circular tables were too small for 5 delegates each.

·       However, free Wi-Fi was very well sign-posted and fast (you have clearly listened to previous feedback in this respect, at least and read the new Maslow hierarchy of needs…)

To the well-known conference organiser:

·       Nice glossy folders, but 5 people per table meant only 1 or 2 people could open them out.

·       Quite an expensive conference, this was also over-subscribed (to make more profit?) Latecomers had to sit at the back for the whole day, without even one of the inadequate tables for their stuff.

·       A series of one speaker after another, with no opportunity for much interaction, or 'doing' during the sessions, except for some whole-conference audience questions.

·       No breakouts or choice of participative workshops. Felt talked at much of the time.

·       However, good time built in for networking during breaks.

To the speakers:

·       How many of you were last minute bookings?

·       Maybe that was why the glossy pack included so many sheets of lined paper explaining that the presentation had not been received at the time of printing. This was one of those 'speakers include' events...

·       How many of you have been subjected yourselves, to over complex PowerPoint slides NO-ONE can read? Why do so many of you persist in doing this to others?

·       This was made worse by no copies in our pack and variable sound quality - so not always possible to follow everything and pick up all of the points made... OK, so you can't control the AV, but you can speak up and use an appropriate pace....

·       However, one of you was outstanding. The innovation you described so engagingly, using great humour, wit and conviction, with simple pictorial slides, is something I will remember in a fortnight, and beyond, and may even be a catalyst for some local ideas development.

It frustrates me to think that there was almost certainly other good quality content, that could also be useful back at the ranch, but due to the above much of this was, for me, lost in translation.

#mmumtm

My mum taught me:

To aspire for an education and a career. My Grandad was very traditional, of his time, and did not prioritise girls’ education. Mum went to grammar school, but the family moved when she was 15, to Ireland for a year. Not speaking Irish prevented her from doing O Levels. None the less, thanks to prolific reading, intelligence and curiosity, Mum has extensive general knowledge, an OU Degree and has never, to our knowledge, been beaten at Trivial Pursuit. Mum always encouraged me, but never pushed me, and never tried to live her life vicariously through mine.

To pronounce the ‘t’ in expressions such as ‘didn’t it?’ A stickler for speaking clearly, avoiding slang etc, Mum gave the ‘look’, and the ‘tut’ for sloppy language use. I’ll add correct grammar to this item. I am known as a bit of a grammar nerd myself, but Mum can still find things to correct in anything I write and show to her.

To talk about things honestly and openly. Mum and Dad always talked to us. This was often at the dinner table, and often for a long time after the meal was finished. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Grey areas. Actions and consequences. Different perspectives. Putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Thinking things through properly. Going for it.

To clean a bath using Ajax powder and a J-cloth. Thank goodness cleaning products have moved on since then.

To cook. Mum is a fabulous cook. At 19, she went to Nice in the South of France to be an au pair. I grew up thinking this was normal. Now I look back and realise that for a young secretary from a suburban Nottingham family in 1960, this was quite unusual and very brave. She found herself having to cook for the children she cared for using a completely different approach and range of ingredients to my Nana, who was not known for her culinary skills.

To be interested in politics. Mum always read quality newspapers, listened to Radio 4 and had (still has) a very strong social conscience. She has never been afraid of expressing her opinions, often with great humour and irony. I’ve lost count of the times we have put the World to rights.

To love reading. I’ve alluded to this already. As a girl, sometimes Mum visited the library more than once a day. Neither of us is ever without a book to read, and we often discuss what we think about them and recommend books we have read to each other.  Only one of us likes Wolf Hall however, and it’s not me.

To sew using a pattern. Mum made a lot of clothes for herself and for us. She helped me to use patterns and a sewing machine, such that I made my first work suit myself! I’m not that good now, but it is like riding a bike and I am getting back into it. I won’t be making a green flowery print trouser suit however – one of the more memorable outfits she made for me. It was the 1970s…

To appreciate Art and Music. Our local library, which we visited regularly of course, had a picture lending service. Do any libraries still do this? We spent ages looking at the choice available (actually hanging up in a separate room of the library) regularly chose new pictures and renewed those we liked. Mum also played music - pop and jazzy blues music. Possibly the album she played the most and that I still love to this day is Carole King’s Tapestry.

To iron a shirt correctly. I hate ironing, but have been taught to do it properly I suppose. She may still iron sheets and towels, but I only iron when it is absolutely necessary.

To be independent and resilient. Possibly the most important item on this list. Mum was very caring, but not over protective. We were not allowed to have a day off school unless we were really ill. We were not allowed to be bored on Sundays when there was nothing on TV. We only had plasters on grazed knees when it was really bad, as fresh air was the best healer (she was right.) When we finally got a phone in our student flat, she was not the mother who rang every week to check I was OK. But she was always there for me, and luckily, she still is…

Enablement

In HR and L&D, it seems to me that we often spend time reflecting, navel gazing, rejecting labels then thinking up new ones, bemoaning management fads then having to implement them or to teach others about them. Not many of us seem to like the term ‘Human Resources’, and some still use ‘Personnel’ (including our professional body, the CIPD, but maybe there is a long term plan to change the P to ‘People’?) ‘People Development’ is probably better as it incorporates the L&D aspect. But there again, many people still refer to ‘Training and Development’, or just ‘Training’. And as for ‘Organisational Development’, well I have been told more than once that lots of people don’t really know what this is… which I have also seen to be so, but that’s another blog, maybe.

Having spent so many years recently involved in major organisational change, I have had so many discussions about what good HR and L&D do, and indeed the entire corporate function. I have also made a bit of a name for myself with colleagues about my hatred of the term ‘back office’ and blogged about why. Basic needs, security needs and the ‘back office’. During this kind of mega change, I have often experienced a sense that everyone perceives that other departments are safer, better off, more in the know etc. than they are. Especially HR.

Yet, in HR and other corporate functions it is often us doing a lot of the transactional work and due diligence required, yet knowing that, as usual, the main efficiencies will be looked for by streamlining the corporate function.

So, in a way who can blame me, and others for asking why we are there, and indeed why some form of our function should remain in place after the restructure? A word I often use is 'enablement'. Our policies, processes, frameworks, HRIS, L&D offer etc. should all enable the business to be efficient and the ‘front line’ staff to do their jobs skilfully, and ever more innovatively. There is no place for a corporate service that disables delivery.

So I am pondering today, on whether the word ‘enable’ or ‘enablement’ could be used to describe our HR and L&D functions, if not our entire corporate functions. The possibilities are quite promising, and, on a lighter note, great for acronym lovers:

Business Enablement	BE (I quite like this – enable everyone ‘to be’ themselves at work?)
Enablement Team	ET (maybe not, for obvious reasons!)
Business Enablement Team	BET (err, not politically correct re condoning gambling?)
Business Enablement Support Team	BEST (now we are cooking on gas)
Business Enablement Department	BED (no)
People Enablement Team	PET (like the name, but can imagine derogative use of acronym)

Back to some seriousness. I really do think we need to embrace the concept of enablement in wider HR, if we are not already – perhaps many of us are and we use different terminology? It is (in my opinion anyway) one of the essential components of a 'commercial' approach.  Internet searches tell me it is used a lot in sales, and in care and recovery, especially in relation to disability. Why not in how organisations think about and behave in relation to their people?